consider the gun proposal makes clear he will be a tough sell. this is a very important constitutionable right. we are dedicated to proect the secondbe amendment. they oppose the been a on assault weapon and the high capacity magazines likely to be among the president s proposal. meanwhile, the newtown shooting prompting action at the state and local level. in california, gun buy-back program ran out of cash in the first half hour. albany, new york, bipartisan group passed a gun control law in the nation and governor andrew cuomo immediately signed it. we saw, we learned and responded and we acted. doing something about it. we are not victims. he hopes it will persuade reluctant member of congress. but with the lawmakers focused on the debt he may find it hard to get their attention. bret? bret: wendell goler, live in the north lawn. thank you. coming up later at the bottom of the hour, we will go to a
years. 50 million guns in the u.s. does that solve the problem? no. does it show we can make a dent if we are serious? yes. two congress men introduced a gun buy back stimulus inspired i hope by my column. i wanted 100 billion a year. we are only off by an order of magnitude that is universe. is it something we can see republicans getting? it would address the question of if it was voluntary. you are not compelling people and say pay $2500 or $1500 for their assault rifle. if you top the do it, fine. have a race to the top on a gun buy back instead of buy states that fit their local gun culture and the feds would top it off. one thing we have to remember is it didn t actually ban anything. we didn t have an assault weapons ban. the thing with you right now, gun sales have rocketed upward
that s part of the problem. why not make it a stimulus at the same time we get guns back and reduce the inventory and the chance we will have these beings and firearms. it s a clever idea and a clever way to sell it. the basic point there about what a gun buy back program would do, the experience we had with the assault weapons ban is we banned them effective 1994 and said everything before 1994 is still legal. the guns are not going bad. they are all out there and we have millions out there. that ban expires in 04. i don t think you practically agree. we will not have a gun buy back soon, but short of something like that where you make an effort to get the guns off the street, can we make a dent? i am more optimistic than you are about a gun buy back. the media is looking at what australia did. they got something like 1/5 of their guns bought back over two
whatever you do, you need to make sure that it s something that, you know, is going to be effective. while the worst school shooting in history remains virginia feck in 2007 where 32 were gunned down bay student the recent crime dated from the justice department that runs through 2008 shows that multiple victim homicides in this country are rare. with less than 1% of the crimes involving five or more victims. gun homicide by individuals in the late teens and early 20s like the virginia tech gunman and friday s aed shoot rer down. according to federal data, gun homicides by persons between 18 and 24 peaked at 8600 in 1993 and dropped to half that by 2008. law enforcement has been making herculean efforts to prevent the tragedy we saw unfold today. efforts at law enforcement disposal range from gun
in the federal service it is. you have to shoot. you have to qualify and meet the standards constantly. also in service training. so i m also just surprised that they put a reserve deputy in an undercover gun buy which is an extremely dangerous operation. you know in atf we ran those things every day. they re tight. you know you ve got stolen guns people that the shouldn t have guns, usually a guy who it s not his first rodeo. he s been involved in crime before. so to put reserve deputies out there in a known situation like that up front in an undercover gun sting, i think that s kind of a bad policy, as well. so i think that s all going to have to be sorted out as the sheriff moves forward. mr. bates attorney clark brewster issued a statement saying that mr. bates was full fullifully certified but he hasn t given anyone any copies can of those certifications. david harris the additional element here to the possibility that this very carefully written